Video: Romney makes the middle-class pitch

posted at 11:21 am on October 17, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney had some good moments in last night’s debate, but this was Romney’s best of the 90-minute event. Until Romney took up this argument, the issue of the middle class hadn’t been broached, which gave Romney an opening to define the parameters of that debate — and he went right to the data to do it. Without explicitly mentioning Joe Biden, Romney twice agreed with the VP that the middle class had been “buried” over the last four years:

“I think you know better. I think you know that these last four years haven’t been so good as the President just described and that you don’t feel like you’re confident that the next four years are going to be much better either.

“I can tell you that if you were to elect President Obama, you know what you’re going to get. You’re going to get a repeat of the last four years. We just can’t afford four more years like the last four years.

“He said that by now we’d have unemployment at 5.4 percent. The difference between where it is and 5.4 percent is 9 million Americans without work.

“I wasn’t the one that said 5.4 percent. This was the President’s plan. Didn’t get there.

“He said he would have by now put forward a plan to reform Medicare and Social Security, because he pointed out they’re on the road to bankruptcy. He would reform them. He’d get that done. He hasn’t even made a proposal on either one.

“He said in his first year he’d put out an immigration plan that would deal with our immigration challenges. Didn’t even file it.

“This is a president who has not been able to do what he said he’d do. He said that he’d cut in half the deficit. He hasn’t done that either. In fact, he doubled it. He said that by now middle-income families would have a reduction in their health insurance premiums by $2,500 a year. It’s gone up by $2,500 a year. And if Obamacare is passed, or implemented — it’s already been passed — if it’s implemented fully, it’ll be another $2,500 on top.

“The middle class is getting crushed under the policies of a president who has not understood what it takes to get the economy working again. He keeps saying, ‘Look, I’ve created 5 million jobs.’ That’s after losing 5 million jobs. The entire record is such that the unemployment has not been reduced in this country. The unemployment, the number of people who are still looking for work, is still 23 million Americans.

“There are more people in poverty, one out of six people in poverty.

“How about food stamps? When he took office, 32 million people were on food stamps. Today, 47 million people are on food stamps. How about the growth of the economy? It’s growing more slowly this year than last year, and more slowly last year than the year before.

“The President wants to do well. I understand. But the policies he’s put in place from Obamacare to Dodd-Frank to his tax policies to his regulatory policies, these policies combined have not let this economy take off and grow like it could have.

“You might say, ‘Well, you got an example of one that worked better?’ Yeah, in the Reagan recession where unemployment hit 10.8 percent, between that period — the end of that recession and the equivalent period of time to today, Ronald Reagan’s recovery created twice as many jobs as this president’s recovery. Five million jobs doesn’t even keep up with our population growth. And the only reason the unemployment rate seems a little lower today is because of all the people that have dropped out of the workforce.

“The President has tried, but his policies haven’t worked. He’s great as a speaker and describing his plans and his vision. That’s wonderful, except we have a record to look at. And that record shows he just hasn’t been able to cut the deficit, to put in place reforms for Medicare and Social Security to preserve them, to get us the rising incomes we need. Median income is down $4,300 a family and 23 million Americans out of work. That’s what this election is about. It’s about who can get the middle class in this country a bright and prosperous future and assure our kids the kind of hope and optimism they deserve.”

This is the heart of the matter, and the most effective attack on Barack Obama’s perceived strength. The recovery has actually been worse for the middle class than the recession, thanks to Obamanomics. Those figures that Romney cited are both accurate and devastating.

Small wonder that Obama won’t discuss his record or an agenda for a second term, but instead wants to conduct class warfare, as he did throughout much of the debate when he attacked Romney’s wealth and success. That will play well with the base, but those working- and middle-class voters who have watched their economic position rapidly eroding during a succession of “Recovery Summers” can’t help but wonder why Obama isn’t talking about his own plans to reverse that trend. “Stay the course” looks like a recipe for disaster among this group.

Romney revisited this in his closing statement in the debate, but this has to be the closing statement every day for the next three weeks. As Alec Baldwin said in Glengarry Glen Ross, always be closing. And in this case, second place isn’t the set of steak knives — it’s “you’re fired” (not safe for work!):

Those middle class voters are just waiting for someone other than Obama to take their votes. Romney has to reach out and take them.

Blowback

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Mitt did what he had to do, which was project strength, intelligence, confidence, calm and likability. The hand-wringing over Bengazi-gate will not be that important – YET. Wait for the next debate for that one.

Romney owns SCOAMF, body and soul. He just needs to seal the deal and call him out over his Bengazi lying and cover-up. In the nicest possible way.

Romney effectively prebutted the 47% remark that the left craved for during the first debate and by the time Obama got around to it at the very end of the debate it was ineffective and had no punch. I noticed no one is talking about it today, perhaps Obama knew it would be a thud and that is why he didn’t use it in the first debate. Mitt’s close was a strong reminder of Obama’s failed first term and left Obama grasping for something to close with for the second straight debate.

The substance of everything Romney said in this segment was pitch perfect, and I believe and hope voters are much more likely to respond to that than they are to a lying sociopath whose primary means of “improving” from the last debate were to muscle up and act more like the insolent punk he really is.

I thought this was the critical part of the debate that “won” it for Romney (but he kinda blew it with the Libya thing later). It was just a devastating attack on Obama. Also note that Obama didn’t get a chance to respond to it (or didn’t want to. what could he have said?)

Class warfare is exactly what Romney will wage if he gets elected. We will all pay for he and his friends looting of America.

lostmotherland on October 17, 2012 at 11:41 AM

You mean like running up a $6 trillion tab in 4 years? Or paying off campaign bundlers with tens of billions in taxpayer dollars? Or handing auto companies over to the UAW? Or bailing out big banks and investment firms? Or bribing insurance companies and the AARP in exchange for their public support of Obamacare?

The ‘last 4 years’ argument works only for those incapable of considering what came before those 4 years. And polls have show that the American electorate is for the most part very clear on that.
Romney’s inability to offer any substantive reply to the question about how he’ll differ from the Bush policies that wrought so much of the damage is a very good opening for the Obama campaign.
Romney weakly offered that he differed from Bush on China.
China?
He is trying to sell a boiler plate Republican trickle down theory to a middle class who have never seen a benefit from this approach.
Now that the Romney campaign has lost on their Benghazi narrative, they are back to the economy. And that should be an advantage – but his 20% tax cut for the wealthy is the poison in his pitch.
People know exactly what that means.

Actually, Romney DOES care about the middle class. He even cares about jerks like you. Romney understands business and he knows that a healthy middle class is vital to keeping this nation competitive in the world. Its in our best interest. If this nation does not remain competitive, the middle class cannot survive. There would only be TWO classes, the rich, who now owe no nation real allegiance in a ‘global society’ unless they choose to, and the poor, who have no options. By the way, Mitt Romney didn’t have to become President in order to become a millionaire. He was already wealthy and successful in every thing he did long before he decided to run for the presidency.

ROMNEY LOVES THIS COUNTRY. He was born and raised here, in the heart of the Midwest, he does not see himself as ‘cosmopolitan’, he sees himself as American, and is proud to say so. The primary interest of Mitt Romney is the well being of THIS nation, and seeing that it remains preeminent in the world, not ‘redistributing the wealth’ to the rest of the world, and ceding the economic and military preeminence of this nation, bought and paid for with American blood and treasure, to other countries, or the UN, in order to to make of this nation “…just one nation among many.”.

lostmotherland on October 17, 2012 at 11:41 AM
lostmotherland on October 17, 2012 at 11:34 AM

You are right. But why stop with giving money to numerous electric car companies and sending stimulus money to Dem precincts while halting a host of other economic activities with the alphabet soup of regulators and Goliath budget deficits?

I THINK THIS COUNTRY NEEDS A NICE, COLD, PAINFUL ENEMA IN THE SHAPE OF A TAX INCREASE, FREEBIES FOR PEOPLE HERE ILLEGALLY AND MILITARY CUTS IN THE FACE OF MILLIONS OF RELIGIOUS NUTS WHO WANT TO KILL US EVEN WHILE OUR LEADER TRIES TO HIDE THEIR HEINOUS CRIMES AND BOWS AND SCRAPES BEFORE THEM.

I knew that the moment would come when the LEFT became so desperate that they would resort to absurdities and lying openly.

I had no idea, however, that Obama would be chief among them.

His lie about Benghazi/Rose Garden speech was the capstone of his untruths. It was blatant and shabby. The world watched him in that Rose Garden speech after Benghazi specifically to see if he would say that the attack on our consulate was a terrorist attack or not. He never said it was a terrorist attack and later stood before the UN and maintained that it was the result of a poorly crafted movie trailer. He eroded one of our core principles and rights in this nation with that statement, freedom of speech and expression. A right we believe that ALL humans share. Obama went on to say ‘The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam.’

This was a lie readily and easily exposed, yet, in his desperation and vanity, Obama told that lie eagerly. He still hasn’t admitted that he deliberately lied during the debate about that Benghazi/Rose Garden speech. Yet, it has not gone away, and it won’t go away. The next debate is all foreign policy, in a formal debate setting.

Today, those on the left are maintaining and entertaining many absurdities regarding that debate last night, but more importantly, they are maintaining that Obama’s presidency and administration hasn’t been a complete and abysmal disaster for this nation. It has. The record proves the last four years has been a disaster the same way that the tape and transcript of the Benghazi/Rose Garden speech proves that Obama blatantly lied last night. It is a matter of record.

I’m a Romney supporter, but I called BS quite a few times last night – albeit much more for Obama than Romney. But on this topic – supporting the middle class, I’m wondering when we’ll hear about a major inconsistency from Romney. He says he doesn’t intent to cut total revenue – and that the wealthy will pay the same %, while the middle class will get a tax cut. Well, how can that be? If the wealthy pay the same, and the middle class pay less, who’s gonna make up the difference? Certainly not the poor! Now, you could explain this away by throwing out the static analysis and factoring increased revenue from the increasing economy, but I don’t believe that’s what he was talking about.

Class warfare is exactly what Romney will wage if he gets elected. We will all pay for he and his friends looting of America.

lostmotherland on October 17, 2012 at 11:41 AM

After two hours, Bryant—a coal mine owner from Jasper—had heard enough and, in a moment being described as “right out of Atlas Shrugged,” took his turn at the microphone

“Nearly every day without fail…men stream to these [mining] operations looking for work in Walker County. They can’t pay their mortgage. They can’t pay their car note. They can’t feed their families. They don’t have health insurance. And as I stand here today, I just…you know…what’s the use? I got a permit to open up an underground coal mine that would employ probably 125 people. They’d be paid wages from $50,000 to $150,000 a year. We would consume probably $50 million to $60 million in consumables a year, putting more men to work. And my only idea today is to go home. What’s the use? I see these guys—I see them with tears in their eyes—looking for work. And if there’s so much opposition to these guys making a living, I feel like there’s no need in me putting out the effort to provide work for them. So…basically what I’ve decided is not to open the mine. I’m just quitting. Thank you.”

Certainly not the poor! Now, you could explain this away by throwing out the static analysis and factoring increased revenue from the increasing economy, but I don’t believe that’s what he was talking about.

happi on October 17, 2012 at 12:15 PM

That’s exactly what he’s talking about, as he mentioned several times in the first debate. As did Paul Ryan in his debate with Biden.

I’ve worked for Bain’s competitors in the past (and I plan to get back to consulting when my kids are old enough). I have studied under professors who are experts in currency crises in Asia. I can assure you that if you are running a business, you will want to hire someone like Romney. His answers were awesome last night.

In my opinion the US should select the next President through a case interview (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_interview). A Management consultant is what the US needs right now. Not a lawyer or community organizer.

It is telling that the Obama campaign is playing primarily for the Democrats core base. Apparently the DNC is sufficiently worried about the election to put a vast amount of energy and funds into simply trying to get their core off of the couch and out to the polling places on election day.

The logic behind such a move by the DNC is obvious. If Romney wins in a landslide, paired with the ‘shellacking’ the Democrats received at the polls in the 2010 midterms, the Democrat brand is damaged. 2016 would be highly doubtful, and even beyond. House and Senate seats would surely be forfeit, too. However, if the base, at least, turns out for Obama, the margin of Romney’s victory could be kept as narrow as possible and the damage to the Democrat brand might be mitigated. 2016 might still be viable, and some of the Senate and House seats might be salvaged, too.

That the core base is so disillusioned, and the enthusiasm gap between GOP voters and Democrat voters is so wide, that the DNC is taking this action and concentrating on their own base, is a direct reflection of Obama’s abysmal record and lack of any plan for the next four years.

Flora duh
That’s exactly what I was gonna say, I’ve backed off since these new trolls started their BS. I get so mad I figured I’d get banned if I engage in any conversation with them.
one thing I saw last night was the reformed bedbug, isn’t it great that a site with great ppl can let ppl see through all the liberal crap and figure things out…….;)

Sleeper cells who came in during the last registration. They’ve just received their engagement orders from OfA. Expect more of them to be activated between now and election day.

Flora Duh on October 17, 2012 at 12:46 PM

I wonder how Boss Emeritus Michelle Malkin feels about all of this.
Her creation has been corrupted.

MichaelGabriel on October 17, 2012 at 12:58 PM

One thing I don’t think Michelle Malkin would’ve done is turn this place into MittRomneyCentral II. Romney won the first debate, Obama gets the edge in the second. That’s an objective assessment. Instead it’s post after post extolling every utterance made by Romney, which is getting tiresome. It’s Red Team hyperpartisanship, whish really isn’t completely synonymous with “conservatism”.

Another thing getting tiresome is the constant shrieks of “Troll!!!!”. It’s made the site unreadable. It’s why I’m pretty much outta here, apparently along with many other people — conservative people, I might add, not O-bot trolls. Good luck to ya.

Yep, I agree Take. . A. F***ing. Break.’. In other words, just leave. Put yourself out of the mysrery of being rodiculed and mocked here, for the inanities that you spout, and off you go….trykos, you can listen there to the echo chamber of likeminded imbeciles….

Another thing getting tiresome is the constant shrieks of “Troll!!!!”. It’s made the site unreadable. It’s why I’m pretty much outta here, apparently along with many other people — conservative people, I might add, not O-bot trolls. Good luck to ya.

ddrintn on October 17, 2012 at 1:07 PM

I don’t think I can reiterate this enough, but not a day passes by here at HA, without someone expressing their deep sorrow and regret for your absence on this forum…mostly they mention how much they miss your insightful posts, your verve, your brilliant intellect, stuff like this…

See “O’Sullivan’s Law”. It applies to an organization like HA, unfortunately.

slickwillie2001 on October 17, 2012 at 1:15 PM

Thank you for that. Makes sense.

Our local talk radio station replaced Glenn Beck with Heidi Harris.
Her co-hosts are a Harvard lawyer (gag) and a liberal.
Glenn Beck was a bit much sometimes but I don’t care to listen to
“diversity programming”.

It was Romney’s strongest moment of the debate — and the weakest moment for Obama, who, surprisingly, chose not to challenge the Republican on his response. The Romney campaign turned part of the exchange into a campaign ad.